Sep 3, 2013

This one's just for the kiddos (or picky family members)! A mild, kid-friendly chili is made with ground turkey, corn, bell pepper, tomatoes and spices. Top it with your favorite toppings, and serve it with some chips on the side for the perfect, back to school lunch.

My youngest daughter is heading to school next week (Pre-K) and this year she'll be bringing lunch to class for the first time. She doesn't eat sandwiches (neither did my oldest), so I'm going to have to get pretty creative to make sure she's still eating healthy balanced meals. I just ordered this Foogo Stainless steal leak-proof thermos from Amazon, which I also did with my oldest daughter and I'll be filling it with some of her favorite warm meals.

And since so many are asking, I have the 6 Quart Hamilton Beach Set 'n Forget Programmable Slow Cooker. I love it because you can adjust the time you want it to cook, and it automatically turns to warm when it's done. It also has a probe for meat that automatically shuts off when done. I hated my old crock pot, it burnt everything and my food had a weird taste. This crock pot is so great, I actually own two!Crock Pot Kid-Friendly Turkey ChiliSkinnytaste.com
Servings: 5 • Size: 1 cup • Old Points: 6 pts • Weight Watcher Points+: 6 pt
Calories: 226 • Fat: 3 g • Carb: 21 g • Fiber: 3.5 g • Protein: 31 g • Sugar: 5 g
Sodium: 688 mg • Cholest: 59 mg

Ingredients:

1.3 lbs 99% lean ground turkey

1 teaspoon oil

1 medium onion, minced

1 red bell pepper, diced fine

1 garlic clove, minced

1 1/2 cups frozen corn kernels

10 oz can Rotel Mild Tomatoes

8 oz small can plain tomato sauce

1/4 cup low sodium chicken broth

1 teaspoon cumin

1/2 teaspoon chili powder

1/2 teaspoon paprika

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Optional Toppings:

diced avocado

reduced fat sour cream

reduced fat shredded cheese

baked tortilla chips

Directions:

Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat, add the turkey, season with salt and cook, breaking up with a spoon until turkey browns and is no longer pink; place into the slow cooker. Add the oil to the skillet and sauté the onion, garlic and bell pepper over medium heat for about 4 to 5 minutes. Spoon over turkey into the slow cooker and stir in corn and tomatoes, tomato sauce, cumin, chili powder, paprika and salt, mix until well blended. Pour chicken broth into the crock pot and add the bay leaf.

Cover and cook on HIGH 4 hours or LOW 6 hours. Serve with desired toppings.

This recipe sounds delicious, I have to make it for my first grader. This is her first year in full day school and trying to get creative with her lunches. Sandwiches have not been a hit at all and they come back home. I have been sending spaghetti or mac n cheese with her. But they have to heat it up for her, going to get the Thermos you referenced above. I think it would be awesome if you start sharing Kid lunch friendly recipes. My daughter really loves your turkey meatballs with the green tomatillo sauce. Your recipes would be awesome for school lunches.

I concur with motivated mommy above; I love the kid-friendly/school lunch options--especially if they can be cooked in the crockpot and freeze well, so more are always welcome! I'm checking out the thermos now (my 1st grader isn't allowed to use the microwave and they won't heat the lunch for him), this may be the perfect solution to break up the sandwich routine. :-)

A quick question -- what type of crockpot do you use. I am in the market for a new one. The one I have has a timer that is supposed to switch to warm, but warm still cooks the food and, if I am at work all day long, whatever is in the crockpot is way overdone, even when cooked on low and switched to warm. I would love to know what you use and if you're happy with it. Thanks and thanks for all the great recipes!

Gina,Thank you so much for all your yummy recipes! I've loved every recipe of yours I've tried! Tonight we are having roasted spaghetti squash and crockpot pasta sauce with sausage. It is still 100 degrees here in Texas, so I laughed when I saw you talking about cooler weather and chili!That being said, I do not like beans so often substitute other veggies. I've never thought of adding corn though. This looks so yummy! Thank you for sharing your creativity with all of us!!!

I love your recipe ideas for both kids and adults! I'd like to let the other parents of children know of a FB page that gives wonderful ideas for kid's lunches...100 Days of Real Food. It's wonderful, b/c all the ideas are healthy and chemical-free.

Thanks for the recipe. Why do you sautee the veggies rather than just putting them into the crock pot raw? I know meet usually needs to be browned before it can go it, but not sure I understand why to pre-cook the veggies.

Recipe looks yummy! My crew are bean eaters so I'll most likely add black beans and kidney beans, then adjust the points accordingly. Speaking of points, I don't have my points calculator with me, but at a glance I would have thought the "OLD POINTS" would have been 4, or at most 5. Just wondering? THANKS!

This chili looks sensational, Gina! Chili is one of my favorite meals to make for (and with) friends and family, and I know we all, including my friends' kiddos, would love this recipe. Thanks for sharing!

Delicious as usual Gina! I added a can of drained kidney beans for extra fiber, and used just under a pound of turkey.

I do find however that most chilis don't incorporate enough spices for my liking. They just taste too tomato-y. So, I doubled the spices, and honestly could have used more! But regardless, your recipes are always amazing. :-)

We just finished eating this for dinner and no one could believe it was turkey!!! Really delicious!. My family likes spicey so I kicked it up a bit, and added a can of pinto beans. Also added a chopped zucchini in with the onions! I made a double batch to have leftovers to make the Loaded Turkey Chili Baked Potato another day! Great recipe Gina!!!

I made this for dinner last night, and we loved it! So much flavor, and so easy! However, ours didn't have much juice at all. Like hardly any. We still ate it and loved the flavor, but I will have to double the tomato juice or add some low sodium V8 next time. I left out the corn. Could that have been the cause?

Thank you so much for this recipe, I have to write to tell you it was a big HUGE hit with my girls who loved it, I was a bit dubious the eldest wasn't going to like it, I knew my youngest would as she's an eating machine, but the eldest at 6 is still a little picky, both girls gobbled it down.

The only thing I did different was to add some whole wheat macaroni to it in the last 30 mins in the slow cooker with some extra water/stock and we served it with cheese and sour cream

Delicious as a family we all totally loved it, I can see so many potential recipes coming out of it too

Gina!! Your blog is an inspiration! I bought rabbit recently, as I've been told it's quite lean meat as well - to my great disappointment I didn't find any rabbit recipes on your site (especially looking for crock pot rabbit recipes) :( is there anything you could recommend for a skinny rabbit dish? I found some but they required frying the rabbit first in oil, which I would have preferred to avoid, or at least minimize. And the recipe was good but not as delicious as the ones you provide here... Thanks in advance!

Made this on Sunday for the family and it was a HUGE HIT! this is by far the best chili recipe ever. I added some mushrooms and mild chili beans as well as 1 3/4 more chicken broth to add more liquid:) My picky 9 year old ate THIRDS!:) Thanks GIna! As always - you are amazing:)

I just put this in my crockpot. I work at home two days a week and I am always looking for new crockpot recipes so that I can have dinner ready when my 16 year old comes home 'starving'! We do not eat red meat and she is a very picky teen, but loves corn :) I did a 1 can of chili beans, and will serve with avocado slices. Thanks for the great recipe! It already smells good!

This definitely had a kick to it, and my non-spicy food little wouldn't touch it. But with blue chips and avocado (to tone down the spicy-ness, as I'm a spicy sissy too), this was delicious. I'm thinking it was the Ro-Tel that did it. I might have to think of something else instead for that next time.

I just put all the ingredients in the crock pot and turned it on low. It looks so delicious. Thanks for this great recipe. The only difference I made was roasted red bell peppers bc I happened to have those instead. Yum!

This is one of my favorite recipes from your website - and I have many! I have a batch in my crockpot right now. Now that my son (the picky eater) is away at college, I also add a can of black beans. Making some pumpkin cornbread to go with this tonight - we can't wait to have dinner!

Would it be okay to have this in the slow cooker while I'm at work for 10 hours (or so) or would it dry out? And would ground chicken be okay to use instead? I'm sure it would be fine since turkey and chicken are cousins, but am curious to hear what others think. Thanks!

OK..... I have two teenage boys, 13 & 15 that are VERY PICKY! It is so hard to find recipes that they like and I"M TIRED of the same old things! This sounds so yummy I'm going to give it a try! I'le let you know the results! Wish me LUCK!! :)

Thanks for this one. We don't have kids yet but my husband can be very picky and we have just started using our crock pot. He LOVED IT! he even loved it reheated and he usually hates leftovers. I can't wait to try some of the other recipes here.

This just finished in the crock pot and I just got my first taste. It's delicious! I substituted lean ground beef for the turkey and I used our own home grown canned diced tomatoes with some diced green chili's added intstead of Rotel and some homegrown diced frozen bell peppers instead of fresh ones because that is what I had. I may add some cooked elbow macaroni to bulk this up for my boys(14 &10) as well. It was super easy to throw together. I'm not a fan of having to precook things that go in the crock pot so if it's a hit with my boys, I may try just throwing it all in the crock pot at once and see how it turns out. It's definitely kid friendly with a very mild taste. My hubby will have to add a lot of hot sauce to make it to his liking but that's a OK with me. My kids like beans too and this would taste great with a can of black beans added as well. Really yummy and easy reciep. :)

Have made this recipe MANY times, and again today! I ALWAYS make a DOUBLE batch since my hubby & sons always want seconds, and they love the leftovers during the week either over baked sweet potato or used over Nachos!! I add pinto beans, diced zucchini, and bump up the heat! WE LOVE IT!

This is very yummy! My kids love it, however I had to alter it for my husband to enjoy since he LOVES spice and LOTS of flavor. I took his bowl and added garlic flavored Pepper Plant and swirled in some sour cream, melted cheddar cheese over some blue corn tortilla chips and poured the chili over the chips for some delicious nachos. He and I liked the extra kick and the kids loved the original (so do I)!!! Thank you for a new family staple.

PS... my girls are spicy adverse so I substituted rotel with plain diced tomatoes, which is also why I had to kick it up a notch with pepper plant and sour cream as stated in above comment. Just an fyi...